Purdue News
Purdue News
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Removing the blinders International Programs in Agriculture help students take a worldviewFrom Perspective Jason Braunecker concedes that he didn’t begin to know what he had to learn about the world until he went out into the world to learn it.
For him, and for senior Abby Patterson, who also traveled thousands of miles to study abroad through Purdue’s International Programs in Agriculture, there’s a new and unique understanding, one that makes them feel like they’ve taken off their blinders. A hunter and outdoor adventurer by nature, Braunecker had limited escapades largely to Dubois County, Indiana, and his small hometown of Huntingburg. Having no immediate family members who had ventured outside the U.S., he hadn’t perceived studying abroad as an obvious choice. "In my freshman year I told myself that I was going to travel somewhere; I didn’t know exactly where. But I knew I wanted to broaden my horizons a little and see what else is out there," Braunecker says. "In my sophomore year I picked New Zealand because I thought I could at least see the majority of the country. Australia was sort of intimidating to me because it was so huge." Braunecker’s goal is to use his future degree in forestry and natural resources to become a conservation law enforcement officer. With that in mind, he checked out IPIA’s wide variety of study abroad programs and enrolled for a summertime semester at Lincoln University, 20 minutes south of Christchurch city on New Zealand’s South Island.
When he wasn’t studying ecology, environmental analysis, geomorphology, or New Zealand history and geography, he was outside, hiking, climbing, hunting, fishing and taking in all he could of New Zealand. In venturing out to hunt with native New Zealanders, he learned how the country’s unique ecological conditions make its environmental policies and politics very different from those at home. "Over there they only have two native land mammals, bats. All other mammals and birds were brought in by the Europeans," Braunecker explains. "All the wild non-indigenous animals have had a negative ecological impact. They’re hurting the ecosystem and making plant species go extinct. "The government wants to eradicate the non-indigenous animals that aren’t used commercially, but the hunters don’t want their eradication. They want to continue hunting them." Braunecker says that during his time in New Zealand as both a student and a hunter, he came to understand both points of view. The cost myth When Braunecker began investigating study abroad, a main concern was cost. He soon realized that financial help was within easy reach. "I did get a lot of it paid for through scholarships; my whole flight was paid due to three scholarships that I got. I got two $500 academic scholarships (one from IPIA; the other from International Programs) and I also got $500 from the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources," he says. David Sammons, associate dean and director of IPIA, says he works hard to demythologize the notion that study abroad is too costly. "We offer scholarships and we work with department heads who are willing to offer support that’s usually $500," Sammons says. "We’ve also worked with financial aid to apply those resources to study abroad. Expenses usually work out to the same cost as tuition, room and board here on campus, sometimes even less. "We think of this not as a cost, but as an investment, just as a textbook or lab fee is an investment in your education." And the investment is well placed, according to President Martin Jischke, who makes a point of welcoming students back to campus after they return from studies abroad. "You have done something very special for yourself and made yourself a more valuable member of the University family," Jischke tells the students. "You have immersed yourself in a brand-new situation and willed yourself to cope with it. By doing that you have broadened your own horizons, sharpened your mind and your wits, enhanced your language and communications skills, and improved your understanding of the world around you." IPIA post 9-11 Speculation on campus after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon was that students would be too fearful to travel overseas. The opposite proved true. Evidently undaunted, and perhaps more curious than ever about the differences between themselves and people elsewhere, a record number of agriculture students signed up for study abroad in 2002. The 118 students involved in IPIA study abroad programs during 2001-02 was a 40 percent jump from the previous year’s near-record number. In a post 9-11 message, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige commented on his own attitude about overseas study: "As Americans begin to re-evaluate our assumptions about the impact of international relations on our daily lives, we realize that the task of diplomacy belongs not only to governments, but to individuals as well. Each of us is an ambassador when we interact with our global neighbors. Thus, giving our children a solid education, which includes the skills they will need to succeed in a global context, is essential." Hands-on in Honduras With IPIA experiences in Ireland and Honduras behind her, Abby Patterson, who recently received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry, takes seriously her responsibility as a world citizen. In Ireland, she worked as a hired hand on a large family farm. More recently, in Honduras, Patterson took advantage of a hands-on food processing and production curriculum at Zamorano, the Pan American School of Agriculture, about 19 miles south-southeast of Tegucigalpa. Students participate in various agricultural enterprises there including fruit production, aquaculture, beekeeping, dairy, bakery and rural development. Patterson says the opportunity to apply the science she had learned by baking bread, processing milk and raising fish, was a welcomed departure from her conventional studies at Purdue. "I really like being out in the country and working with my hands. Biochem-istry is a lot of book work and lab work – not so much applied science," she says. Patterson also wanted to learn to speak Spanish, which she immediately discovered would be to her advantage in communicating with her two roommates from Ecuador. "The first night I met Adrianna, she had lost her room key and she couldn’t communicate to me that she didn’t have her key. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, so we just ended up sitting there and staring at each other, smiling and laughing," she says. Patterson says she spent about 60 percent of her time speaking Spanish – enough to become reasonably proficient. She says one of her more memorable experiences came while working with fellow students to help build a church for their rural development project. "It was a very poor, small community and they really wanted to have a church," Patterson recalls. "We spent a week soliciting money and things from different companies in Tegucigalpa to help fund the project. Then we took a day and we all helped move boulders from inside the church so they could flatten the floor. "It was really neat because there was a school right next to us with kids from about age 6 to 12. They were so excited that we were helping them with their church that they came out with all the little rocks that we had taken out, and they lined a pathway to the church." Patterson says she couldn’t help but be affected by the poverty she saw while shadowing a Peace Corps volunteer for a week after her session at Zamorano. "It was really an eye-opening experience because people we consider to be poor here in the U.S. have so much compared to the average person in Honduras. It’s just night and day," she says. "Their definition of poverty is … having absolutely no home. Poor people who did have homes, had shacks with corrugated metal roofs that weren’t on very well. They were about 12 feet by 10 feet. Most of them didn’t have running water, heat or electricity." The experience, she says, has caused her to believe strongly about the value of study abroad and the importance of having a worldview. "If you don’t go outside of the country and if you’re not looking at countries on their level, you get this isolated picture of America – that we don’t touch anybody else and nobody touches us. But if you really go and experience other cultures, you see how connected our world is. It makes you understand how the things you do every day can affect people all over the world." Patterson says taking a worldview can affect everything from how you assess political candidates to whether you use paper or plastic. "In Honduras they love plastic and they don’t have a good trash system, so you see trash everywhere and you know it’s going to kill the environment," she says. "So, I can’t bring myself to use plastic bags anymore." The damage that plastic trash is doing in Honduras and the degree to which poverty limits people’s lives throughout the world are just two of the many ways that Patterson says her eyes have been opened by her education overseas. "It makes you have a worldview, I think," she says of her experiences. "One of the things that I really see now is … in everything that I do, I try to help people realize that you can’t just have your blinders on."
Story by Amy Raley Photographs provided
Cutline #1: Zamorano roommates Adrianna Banderas (left), Abby Patterson and Lorena Patiño. Cutline #2: Braunecker holds a longfin eel he caught while fishing during his spring break in New Zealand. Longfin eels are native to New Zealand.
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